WWE: How Wade Barrett Has Become Irrelevant in WWE

WWE has been doing a reasonably good job pushing talent over the past three years. With all of the main eventers that have left WWE over the past three years, WWE began to realize that Shawn Michaels, Triple H and The Undertaker wouldn't be able to carry the product forever. So, needless to say, WWE attempted to establish new stars.

Some of these pushes resulted in great new talents such as CM Punk or Sheamus. Other pushes resulted in miserable failures such as Jack Swagger and, the topic of this article, Wade Barrett.

In February 2010, WWE canceled ECW to launch NXT. While NXT has since become a show that is watched by, well, almost nobody, WWE did their best to attempt to get the show over with the fans.

After the first season ended and Wade Barrett was crowned the winner, WWE grouped all of the NXT Season 1 rookies together into a stable and had them debut on RAW in what was arguably the best episode of Monday Night Raw in 2010. Leading that stable was Wade Barrett.

Wade Barrett went on to have the feud of the year with WWE's poster boy, John Cena. Looking back, the better half of 2010 for WWE was all about Wade Barrett. Yet somehow, he has since become irrelevant in WWE.

WWE may have dropped the ball on Barrett, but was there really ever any ball to drop? Looking back it seems like the only reason Barrett was so over in 2010 was because of who he was working with—the biggest star in WWE, John Cena.

His mic work is just all right and his in-ring ability is far from amazing. The truth is, looking at where he is now, I find it hard to believe he headlined pay-per-views this time last year.

The bottom line seems to be that WWE will try to push many talents, and only half of them will remain over with the fans and at the main event level. A good number of them will fall back down to the mid-card.

Jack Swagger, Wade Barrett and Dolph Ziggler seem to be three examples of that, although Ziggler will hopefully rebound. Others like Sheamus, CM Punk and (somehow) Alberto Del Rio will have successful pushes that solidify their spot in WWE.